Page 1 of Puck Love

“Can we just… can weturn the cameraoff?”

The cameraman, Grant Schafer, glares over the lens as if to say, “Bitch, are you crazy?” and he keeps the damn thing trained on my face. The red light continues to flash, tauntingme.

It’s happening again. The tightness of my skin, the inability to breathe. My heart stutters, beating out a broken rhythm as if it were a butterfly inside my chest, captured, caged, and desperate to getout.

“Please?” I beg, sucking in air that never seems to reach my lungs. Grant looks to the woman beside him forclarification.

“Why don’t you take a break and we’ll pick this up in ten,” Lana Lambert, my manager of five years, says, and it really isn’t a question. She has this way about her that forces people to shut up and take notice. Me? I need a face full of makeup, a short skirt, and a pair of six-inch stilettos to achieve what she can with a singlelook.

Grant mutters, but it sounds like an inaudible grunt.God, why in the hell did I agree to this? Oh, right, I didn’t. Lana did it for me. If I didn’t think I’d lose my shit completely without her, I’d fire herass.

“I need air . . .” I take a deep breath and unclip my mic from my gold sequin mini dress. Of course, the tape prevents it from being removed completely because the battery pack is strapped to my back. Feedback bounces all around the room. I wince at the noise, and reach for the battery, but I’m unable to remove it by myself. My hands tremble. I need to get it off me. I need the quiet of my tour bus as the noise of the stadium falls away. I need to get out of this ridiculousdress.

“Get it off. Get it off!” I scratch and claw at my back, desperate to remove it, to shut out the noise. Our boom operator sets his pole down, and the woman who wired me up rushes in so I don’t ruin their preciousmicrophone.

Grant switches off the camera and sets it in his lap. “This is gold, Stella. Your fans want to know what you do before coming out to perform. They want the behind-the-scenes Stella Hart. Uncut, unedited . . . not the perfect package you and your label have presented foryears.”

“They’ll have to search pretty far for her,” I whisper.Considering I have no idea who she is. “I . . . I need everybodyout.”

I can’t breathe, all the noise, the cameraman in my face. I feel as if I’m sinking, and the whole world is watching. Despite being loved by millions, not a damn one of them is throwing me a lifeline. I pant, double over and rest my head between myknees.

“Stella, you’re alright.” Lana moves closer. I flinch, and rake one hand through my hair. Makeup is gonna be pissed that they’ll have to fix my face, but tears slide down my cheeksanyway.

“Don’t touchme.”

“Okay, honey. No one’s going to touch you.” Lana is no stranger to my panic attacks. I’ve been having them for as long as I’ve been performing, but they’re getting worse. They’re getting harder to control, with each one more emotionally draining than the last. I want to claw my way out. I want to shuck off my skin and slither free like a snake, along with all my regrets andmistakes.

I. Can’t.Breathe.

I have to get out. I stagger toward the door. I’m drunk on despair and emptiness. My heart is beating so fast I feel like it might escape, just bust free of my chest and fly away. I wish it could. I wish I could followit.

“I needair.”

Lana knows,she knows, but she still warns me. “Stella, you’re due to go on in tenminutes.”

“So, stall them,” I whisper. “Tell Thomas it’s his lucky night. He gets to do another fewsongs.”

“That’s not on the setlist.”

“Then tell him to improvise. I hear he’s good at that,” I snap. Grant stands as if he’s about to follow me. “No!”

“But . . .”

“Turn the camera off,” Lana sayscoolly.

Grant continues filming, but he stares at her over the lens as if she’s now the crazyone.

I push past them both. Out in the corridor, I ignore the women waiting backstage to meet my support act, Thomas Bentley. They scream when they see me, and plead with me to sign autographs, but I keep my head down. I’m focused solely on getting outside, feeling the crisp October Calgary air on my face. When I reach the exit, Rich opens the door automatically. This man has worked for me on every tour since I was seventeen years old. He, too, knows the routine. Though I usually never cut it thisclose.

“You’re late, Miss Stella.” He steps aside, allowing me room to exit through the tinydoor.

“I know.” I launch myself outside. Gulp down air the way a fish does when it’s pulled from the water. I close my eyes and let the cool breeze wash over me, and for a minute I can breathe again, but the clamor of twenty thousand voices chanting my name from the arena presses down on me like a lead weight. It’s suffocating. I need a distraction. “How’s Claradoing?”

Rich’s eight-year-old granddaughter has come to every concert since she was three that we do in our home state of Tennessee. When you’re on the road, your staff becomes family. A huge, dysfunctional family. Of course, there are some members of my road crew that I know better than others, but at the very least, I remember the names of all one hundred and fifty people who work forme.

“She’s good. Aced her spellingbee,”

“Good forher.”

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